Non-threaded

Forums » Creative Corner » Read Thread

Take part in collaborative works, share your short stories, poems, original artwork and more.

Short stories

6 years ago
Anyone know a good site to put short stories up to get feedback and stuff? I mean CYS will always be my home, but I have a shit ton of stuff that I've done for school and need to work on, but they're not story games so can't put them up here.

Short stories

6 years ago

I don't know of any short story sites of the top of my head, so...

"Creative Corner
Share your short stories, poems, collaborative works, original artwork and more."

Share it here, I'm sure people won't mind, given the above description.

Short stories

6 years ago
No one gives feedback here though! Theres about 5 active members on the site.

Short stories

6 years ago

The 5 active members is all you need if the feedback they give is good.

Granted, it might depend on the sort of feedback you are looking for as well.

As such, make it easy to give feedback, by stating what you want specifically (ie, grammar, punctuation, pacing, etc), otherwise you'll end up with more general advice (in my opinion). There really is a lot to writing, and trying to go in depth for all of it will take forever without generalising a lot.

Anyway, still put it up since if the story is good you might get a commendation, totally worth it right?

Short stories

6 years ago
And make sure you actually ask for feedback. Otherwise readers don't really know. I am glad to give feedback, but seldom give it unsolicited.

Short stories

6 years ago

Way more than five active members, unless you're saying right at this very moment.

Short stories

6 years ago
Joined another site and instantly regretted it. Posted feedback on someone’s shitty story:

A very sweet story, with a nice message. It seemed a bit... intense maybe? Why does he have such a 'brotherhood' relationship with some kids he's played basketball with a few times? The overall message, 'All you need is you' is good, but the other bit about 'You don't have to be somebody's little brother or sister etc.' might be a bit much. How could he be someone's little sister if he's a boy? Why are his parents telling him this when the main story wasn't about anyone he was actually related to? Could have been something more like 'You don't have to pretend to be more mature than you are, or someone you're not'. Generally though, high quality writing with excellent grammar, would definitely appeal to young kids.

And they replied with:

2 hours agoFor your information I happen to believe love is what makes a family. People loving, knowing and trusting each other well; whether they're legally related or not. And maybe you haven't seen this before, but I've seen many many times in my life how kids bond with each other very fast And when they see each other often . . . at school, at camp, on the team, in a theater group, anywhere, some of them bond together like family which is what I bring upon in my stories. And yes they are childrens stories. I admit I'm not exactly Dr. Suess or Ezra Jack Keats, I'm not a professional writer at all, to be honest with you. I do it nowhere else but here. Nevertheless I'm very proud of my writing. And the child characters I've created and still creating receive wise guidance from their parents which makes the kids positive role models. Yes the story does have intensity as many of my stories do. I'm an intense person so I put intensity into my writing.

If you read my author page I mention I write what I feel in my heart. If what you see in my writing doesn't meet your own personal standards, then I suggest you not read them.

But I do not and will not change my style of writing just to satisfy you.

Everybody here writes their own way and I'm one of them.

Thank you and goodbye.

And then I was blocked.

Short stories

6 years ago

See, people here can't block you, they can only disable pms...

Tho yeah, idk, maybe they misunderstood your feedback and took it as an attack.

I find it a bit strange that they would respond only to block you right after it. Seems inefficient to me, if you're going to block someone, spending time on a reply beforehand seems like a waste.

Anyway, in defence of that site, one bad experience shouldn't make you regret joining it, there might be people there who would really appreciate good feedback and you just stumbled upon someone who is a bit different.

Short stories

6 years ago

Which site was this?

Short stories

6 years ago

cog I'd suspect. ha ha.

Short stories

6 years ago

I was thinking that it might be Figment since there are a lot of emotional "authors" over there writing short stories, but I think they closed down and transitioned into Underlined already, which most of the Figgits were crying about.

Short stories

6 years ago
It’s called ‘Allpoetry’ but there’s short stories there too. To be honest it seems like a constant spew of shitty edgy poems about depression, like there’s one posted every 15 mins. Plus the sites even buggier than here, not much of a community either. My search continues.

Short stories

6 years ago
Damn that’s not even harsh criticism. “I’m an intense person” lol

Short stories

6 years ago

I've seen other writers ask that question.  If there's a site out there where you can post stories knowing you definitely will receive meaningful responses, I have yet to find it. That's one of the thing that impressed me with this site.  If you post a storygame here, you will hear people's unvarnished opinions of it.

Short stories

6 years ago

Maybe if we get enough people posting short stories in the forums here, we can get a short story section coded with proper ratings/comments.

However, nothing is stopping us from writing a completely linear story here with the editors we already have and simply calling it a Short Story/Novella/etc so people know there won't be choices.

Unless of course that irritates people.  Technically that won't stop us unless we care what people think, but it's a potential option.

Sorry, it's late, I'm rambling.

Short stories

6 years ago
This isn't a short story site and also God no.

Just read this thread though and lol. Welcome to writing sites on the rest of the internet vain: people with dangerously inflated egos and a healthy dose of Dunning Krueger desiring only endless praise, how dare you question them you monster.

Short stories

6 years ago

True, it's not a short story site.  But if people are used to the community, and enjoy it, then the thought crossed my mind.  Saw no harm in sharing it.

Short stories

6 years ago
It's a suggestion that's come up before and IIRC consensus was it would pretty much guarantee a constant stream of low effort dribblings that would shove real CYOAs off the page and take up 80% of readers' attention. There's already a pretty major problem with longer stories getting ignored in favor of quick points.

It's not like it's all that difficult to staple on a few choices to a linear story and call it a day anyhow, asking for a bare amount of minimum effort to make a CYOA on a CYOA site seems easier than changing the minimum standards and focus of the site or doing actual programming to change how it currently works. (Never gonna happen lol)

Collecting short stories together in a framing storygame is also pretty simple.

Short stories

6 years ago

Well, I have been back only a few months now, so I missed that discussion.  But if it's been discussed before, I'll accept that decision.  I wasn't about to make a huge push for it.  Though I do kind of like the idea of taking another place over by storm before it has a lot of people...I don't think there's enough of us for that though, alas.

Short stories

6 years ago
I recently vented about this in another thread but I used to be on a site called fanstory.com that was great for this. It had a subscription fee and a healthy community that loved getting and getting brutal reviews and a lot of tools built in to support that.

Last year when I was really getting into writing short stories again I rather stupidly threw down for a year's subscription without realizing the site had changed...and Jesus had it changed. D: 2000 word stories got complaints for being too long, the tiny handful of people who commented gave generic 'good job' comments with no indication of even reading the stories just to take their pretend internet money and run. The 'ideal' story there now is a 900 word unfinished blurb or 'chapter' the author has pumped in $30 IRL to promote and God help you if you give it less than 5/5 stars, that is not the service they paid for at all so just say 'great job, amazing!' and take the fake reward money they provided you and continue farming.

...and putting down money on a subscription again was basically a last resort after searching for alternatives so yeah writing sites are basically a desert wasteland as far as meaningful feedback goes.(I blame the inclusivity movement for the extreme fragility of fucking everyone on the internet these days...) If you do find an oasis out there be sure to let us know.

Short stories

6 years ago

Scribophile, last I checked, allowed for some pretty in depth critique.  My problem is more the system of when you can post and how much it 'costs' to post.  Sure, I suppose I shouldn't whine about having to read other people's stories to post my own.  After all, I want people to read my stuff.  But sometimes I'm just more motivated to write than read, and I want to do that.  Also, the etiquette is that you should thank everyone for their reviews, and I always felt guilty when I got behind on those things.

Short stories

6 years ago
I may have another look at that one some day but there's just no way I have the time to get involved with another site right now. It may be one of the more workable alternatives out there though.

Short stories

6 years ago

It's not too bad.  I don't mine a little 'give and take' economics, but the costs/rewards sometimes felt a little skewed.  It does have the ability to make groups and stuff, so you can find a nest of like minded people to share things with.